In 5th grade I had no reason to be a bully. In addition to being one of the leaders of Harum Scarum, the cliquey girls’ handball club, I had kind parents and good friends.

So why did I take pleasure in playing a cruel trick on Barbara Satinsky?

It was one thing to phone random numbers and say in my best 11-year-old, grown-up impersonation, “This is the electric company. Is your refrigerator running? Well you better go catch it!” and then crumble into giggles for an hour.

But it was quite another thing for my friend Sherry and me to call a bunch of girls from our class and pretend we were Barbara Satinsky. Mimicking Barbara’s voice we took turns saying, “I’m having a pajama party this weekend and I hope you can come.”

Apparently we nailed the when and where because the following Monday morning, Miss Bradley, the principal, summoned us to her office where our stern-faced parents were waiting. It was pretty terrifying, though I’m sure not nearly as ghastly as it had been for Barbara Satinsky when all those kids showed up at her house.

Is bullying part of human nature, or at least in the nature of some children? In the world at large we are every bit as barbaric as the caveman.

What is it that drives some to pick on the vulnerable, the way I did? We have seen bullied teens retaliate by murdering other youngsters, which highlights the degree of pain and suffering bullying inflicts.

I thought my prank was funny; I felt no empathy for Barbara Satinsky; whereas now, empathy overwhelms me to the point that I run to mute the TV if the local news accidentally comes on.

Fifty-five years after my fifth-grade high jinks, it occurs to me to attribute my every kind gesture to atoning for the Barbara Satinsky stunt, the same way doting on my parents after I emerged from my rebellious years could be attributed to my efforts to atone for all the heartache I caused them.

Maybe the whole pj party episode scarred me more than it did Barbara. When my oldest daughter was old enough to form a sentence, I started talking about “including.” We would go to a coffee shop and as soon as I lifted her out of her stroller and settled her into her Sassy Seat, she would say, “Let’s talk about including.”

We must have had 500 conversations about including. I never tired of the subject.

9 Responses to "I’m Sorry, Barbara Satinsky"

I remember so clearly the instances of BEING bullied, while I seem to have blocked out the instances where I was the bully. It is a strange phenomenon. I love that you owned up to it, mom. I wonder if Barbara Satinsky will google her name (is that her real name or did you change it for the article?) and see this article! Have you contacted her since? Love you.

Good question Lize! It’s her real name and I did see that people arrived at my blog because they searched her name. Not sure if there are others. I looked for her on FB and didn’t find her. My friend Amy knew her at summer camp when they were 16. I haven’t had any contact since we were around 12. <3

I didn’t bully or even do many practical jokes, but one night when I was about 13 my friend Della and I knew that David Kaplan, a stoner teen who lived across the street from her, was thoroughly baked on marijuana. We decided to send a large pizza his way. It seemed like the funniest idea imaginable. By rehearsing and pinching myself liberally, somehow I got it together to speak the order over Della’s family’s phone without busting a gut giggling.

Then we hid behind Della’s living room curtain to watch David’s door. In about ten minutes a delivery fellow came out of a car, box in hand. We couldn’t hear David speak but we watched him argue with a befuddled expression. After a few minutes David sighed, left the doorway, came back with money. He took the pizza. He must have been not quite sure whether he’d ordered it. Della and I almost literally died laughing.

Just think of trying to explain to someone born after, say, 1995 that when the phone rang we used to have no idea who was calling. On rare, exotic occasions, if there was a good reason, the police could tap our phone to find out. Our young listener would surely conclude that oldsters are stupid!

David, I can’t say I’m exactly sorry for what I did. It wasn’t mean enough for me to feel regret. But if you suspected you hadn’t really ordered that pizza, you were right. And although our prank wasn’t really too funny, thanks for the biggest laugh I ever enjoyed in my life.

I am so happy to hear that you bullied someone when you were a kid, not because you I’m happy that you were mean, but because it makes me feel better. I did it too, except I was much younger, about 4 or 5. Her name was Nanette Utter. One day, my best friend and I decided that Nanette was wearing an ugly dress, so we made a plan to tell her in very sarcastic voices (could I possibly have known sarcasm as a 5 year old?) that we LOVED her dress. She said thank you and then we ran away and started laughing. How horrible! When I think about that now, I am so profoundly embarrassed that I can almost cry. I can’t even believe that I am writing about it.
I don’t know what made me do such a mean thing. I don’t ever remember doing anything like that again. I am sorry, Nanette Utter.

5th grade must have been the age of “pranks” and not thinking…I too made some prank calls. Luckily I never got busted. But, I’ve always felt bad about one call in particular in which a young girl thought she’d won a Barbie doll (how cruel, huh)? I am hopeful she was “playing” me as much as I was her. I’m glad we have caller ID now…I wish we did back then!